Amy and Natalie were the perfect hostesses, there was more wine than we could ever hope to drink. As there should be!

Each of us was asked to bring a fall-themed dessert. Since I’m currently living in a sublet with none of my usual kitchen gadgetry (not even a hand mixer!) I opted to go kitschy with a Rice Krispies Cake with caramel apple candy corn. Lovely, no?

Susan of House of Brinson brought, literally, pounds of homemade and hand-wrapped gingerbread caramels. And on top of that she packaged us each up a little bag of our own to take home.

My mom makes this every Christmas, we call it Cracker Candy and oh my God. I dare you to eat just one piece. You already lost.

This was the most inventive in my eyes, pear and apple wrapped “mini pies” with pumpkin cream cheese dip. I’m so lucky there were only two left once I got around to trying them!

We tried as many different sweets as we wanted (or until we got high on sugar), Natalie’s caramel sea salt brownies were my vote for best. A perfectly fudgey brownie with crunchy caramel edges, heavenly.

And yes, we totally voted for favorite – there was even a prize! This anise and pine nut pie was the winner.

However, the ladies were sweet enough to put together goodie bags for all of us to leave with. So much good stuff.

An afternoon well spent, indeed. Thanks so much to Amy and Natalie for putting it all together!

Nov29

If I’m not mistaken this will be the first December of my life that I don’t have an advent calendar. I’m kind of bummed, but dig deep and pull through (can you tell I’ve been watching a lot of Friday Night Lights lately?). If I were making one for someone else, however, I’d be super into this graphic holiday box advent from Oh Happy Day, great colors and patterns, and of course treats!